67 ideas
10468 | A metaphysics has an ontology (objects) and an ideology (expressed ideas about them) [Oliver] |
17663 | If you know what it is, investigation is pointless. If you don't, investigation is impossible [Armstrong] |
10471 | Ockham's Razor has more content if it says believe only in what is causal [Oliver] |
10749 | Necessary truths seem to all have the same truth-maker [Oliver] |
10750 | Slingshot Argument: seems to prove that all sentences have the same truth-maker [Oliver] |
18933 | Not-Being obviously doesn't exist, and the five modes of Being are all impossible [Gorgias, by Diog. Laertius] |
17688 | Negative facts are supervenient on positive facts, suggesting they are positive facts [Armstrong] |
10747 | Accepting properties by ontological commitment tells you very little about them [Oliver] |
10748 | Reference is not the only way for a predicate to have ontological commitment [Oliver] |
17691 | Nothing is genuinely related to itself [Armstrong] |
10721 | If properties are sui generis, are they abstract or concrete? [Oliver] |
10719 | There are four conditions defining the relations between particulars and properties [Oliver] |
17679 | All instances of some property are strictly identical [Armstrong] |
10716 | There are just as many properties as the laws require [Oliver] |
10720 | We have four options, depending whether particulars and properties are sui generis or constructions [Oliver] |
12677 | Armstrong holds that all basic properties are categorical [Armstrong, by Ellis] |
10714 | The expressions with properties as their meanings are predicates and abstract singular terms [Oliver] |
10715 | There are five main semantic theories for properties [Oliver] |
10739 | The property of redness is the maximal set of the tropes of exactly similar redness [Oliver] |
10738 | Tropes are not properties, since they can't be instantiated twice [Oliver] |
10740 | The orthodox view does not allow for uninstantiated tropes [Oliver] |
10741 | Maybe concrete particulars are mereological wholes of abstract particulars [Oliver] |
10742 | Tropes can overlap, and shouldn't be splittable into parts [Oliver] |
17666 | Actualism means that ontology cannot contain what is merely physically possible [Armstrong] |
17667 | Dispositions exist, but their truth-makers are actual or categorical properties [Armstrong] |
17687 | If everything is powers there is a vicious regress, as powers are defined by more powers [Armstrong] |
17678 | Universals are just the repeatable features of a world [Armstrong] |
10472 | 'Structural universals' methane and butane are made of the same universals, carbon and hydrogen [Oliver] |
17669 | Realist regularity theories of laws need universals, to pick out the same phenomena [Armstrong] |
17677 | Past, present and future must be equally real if universals are instantiated [Armstrong] |
17686 | Universals are abstractions from states of affairs [Armstrong] |
15442 | Universals are abstractions from their particular instances [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
10724 | Located universals are wholly present in many places, and two can be in the same place [Oliver] |
10730 | If universals ground similarities, what about uniquely instantiated universals? [Oliver] |
7963 | Aristotle's instantiated universals cannot account for properties of abstract objects [Oliver] |
7962 | Uninstantiated properties are useful in philosophy [Oliver] |
10727 | Uninstantiated universals seem to exist if they themselves have properties [Oliver] |
10722 | Instantiation is set-membership [Oliver] |
10744 | Nominalism can reject abstractions, or universals, or sets [Oliver] |
17668 | It is likely that particulars can be individuated by unique conjunctions of properties [Armstrong] |
10726 | Things can't be fusions of universals, because two things could then be one thing [Oliver] |
10725 | Abstract sets of universals can't be bundled to make concrete things [Oliver] |
17680 | The identity of a thing with itself can be ruled out as a pseudo-property [Armstrong] |
17693 | The necessary/contingent distinction may need to recognise possibilities as real [Armstrong] |
10745 | Science is modally committed, to disposition, causation and law [Oliver] |
17685 | Induction aims at 'all Fs', but abduction aims at hidden or theoretical entities [Armstrong] |
17683 | Science suggests that the predicate 'grue' is not a genuine single universal [Armstrong] |
17675 | Unlike 'green', the 'grue' predicate involves a time and a change [Armstrong] |
17674 | The raven paradox has three disjuncts, confirmed by confirming any one of them [Armstrong] |
17672 | A good reason for something (the smoke) is not an explanation of it (the fire) [Armstrong] |
17684 | To explain observations by a regular law is to explain the observations by the observations [Armstrong] |
17676 | Best explanations explain the most by means of the least [Armstrong] |
10746 | Conceptual priority is barely intelligible [Oliver] |
17664 | Each subject has an appropriate level of abstraction [Armstrong] |
9866 | Gorgias says rhetoric is the best of arts, because it enslaves without using force [Gorgias, by Plato] |
5864 | Destroy seriousness with laughter, and laughter with seriousness [Gorgias] |
17692 | We can't deduce the phenomena from the One [Armstrong] |
17689 | Absences might be effects, but surely not causes? [Armstrong] |
17662 | Science depends on laws of nature to study unobserved times and spaces [Armstrong] |
17682 | A universe couldn't consist of mere laws [Armstrong] |
17690 | Oaken conditional laws, Iron universal laws, and Steel necessary laws [Armstrong, by PG] |
17670 | Newton's First Law refers to bodies not acted upon by a force, but there may be no such body [Armstrong] |
8582 | Regularities are lawful if a second-order universal unites two first-order universals [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
17671 | A naive regularity view says if it never occurs then it is impossible [Armstrong] |
17681 | The laws of nature link properties with properties [Armstrong] |
16246 | Rather than take necessitation between universals as primitive, just make laws primitive [Maudlin on Armstrong] |
9480 | Armstrong has an unclear notion of contingent necessitation, which can't necessitate anything [Bird on Armstrong] |